Engineers Deny Charges in BP Spill

Two Who Oversaw Key Safety Test Are Set to Appear in U.S. Court on Seaman's Manslaughter Counts

ENLARGE

Fire boats battle a blaze at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 21, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico. The catastrophic blowout killed 11 people.
U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images

By

Tom Fowler and

Russell Gold

Updated Nov. 18, 2012 7:20 p.m. ET

In the hours before the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in 2010, two BP engineers made what turned out to be a catastrophic misjudgment about a critical safety test. Now the men face criminal charges in a court case starting later this month that experts say will be a tough test for both the prosecution and defense.

Don Vidrine, 65 years old, and Robert Kaluza, 63, are slated to appear in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on Nov. 28 on charges including "seaman's manslaughter" that could send them to prison for a decade or more.

The charges stem from their failure to properly interpret a key safety test on the drilling rig before the deadly blowout, which killed 11 people and caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Lawyers for the men deny the allegations.

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Betty Doud lights candles in front of crosses representing the 11 victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion before a vigil to mark the first anniversary of the BP PLC oil spill on a beach in Grand Isle, La., Wednesday, April 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Published Credit: Associated Press
Associated Press

The men oversaw a final test to determine whether cement pumped into the well to seal it off was holding back oil and gas more than three miles below the sea floor.

In the case of seaman's manslaughter, which is based on an 1830s-era law aimed at protecting sailors from dangerous decisions made by captains or crew members, the government must prove only simple negligence.

"Simple negligence is a failure to exercise care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise under the circumstances," said Gregory Linsin, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section who now is a partner with Blank Rome LLP in Washington.

That is a lower burden than that required in most other manslaughter statutes, in which prosecutors must show that individuals behaved recklessly, or with a willful disregard for known risk, Mr. Linsin said.

However, prosecutors still have to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the men failed to exercise that care, and some defense lawyers not connected to the case said that could be a challenge.

"It's still a surprise that the Department of Justice would pin the entire incident on just these two 60-year-old guys who were actually working on the rig," said Jimmy Ardoin, a criminal defense lawyer in Houston.

Numerous failures led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, as The Wall Street Journal has reported. The cement at the bottom of oil well didn't hold back surging oil and gas, and an important safety device called the blowout preventer didn't seal off the well.

According to the indictment, by failing to contact onshore engineers about troubling readings the men saw from multiple "negative pressure tests" on the day of the accident, accepting "nonsensical explanations" for the results from others and failing to fully investigate the anomalies, "the negligent and grossly-negligent conduct of defendants Kaluza and Vidrine proximately caused the deaths."

"It is almost inconceivable that any fair-minded person would blame this hard working and diligent man for one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the oil business," said Robert Habans, Mr. Vidrine's lawyer.

Mr. Kaluza's lawyer, David Gerger, said his client was "devastated" by the charges and that he is being made a scapegoat by prosecutors. "Bob was not an executive or high-level BP official," Mr. Gerger said. "He was a dedicated rig worker who mourns his fallen co-workers every day."

Mr. Vidrine and Mr. Kaluza, each with years of experience, were responsible for executing orders sent from shore as to how the well would be built.

On the day of the explosion, Mr. Kaluza oversaw the first negative pressure test, which came back with results that were viewed on the rig at the time as confusing. Mr. Vidrine conducted a second test when he took over for Mr. Kaluza late in the afternoon, and the results also were unusual. After conferring with others on the rig about the results, Mr. Vidrine gave the go-ahead to continue with operations.

There were no federal rules about how to conduct such a test at the time. That has since changed; federal regulators finalized new drilling rules last week that spell out test procedures.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said Thursday after unsealing the indictments that the accident was caused by "BP's culture of privileging profit over prudence." BP has denied it has such a culture.

David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor who previously led the Justice Department's environmental-crimes unit, said the issue of BP's corporate culture is likely to come up at trial.

"It raises the question if it's fair to charge these individuals who had no influence or authority over these policies and this culture," Mr. Uhlmann said.

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